So no, an investment from Speciality Medical Partners doesn’t require anyone to lose their job or make other drastic changes in how the practice operates. With that said, there are inevitable and unavoidable post-close changes that are a natural by-product of bringing on a significant new partner. The relevant questions here are “how?” and “to what end?”

What Changes and Why
Often, after we have become partners, we field calls from concerned team members asking if they can make decisions as they did previously. We ensure them that it is business as usual, and that they should continue to do what they would have done prior to the partnership. Communication is key and we are happy to answer any questions from our partners, but it’s not our style to tell leadership teams how to run the business.

The “business of business” is where the change occurs. We will not be suggesting a change to the type of supplies you are using or inferring that we know a better way to care for your patient. While we’re always available to help brainstorm through a problem, our post-partnership focus is always on improving the parts of the practice that are the same across every business type. For example, how to find patients, how to identify and implement relevant technology, how to make sure employees are provided for, how to protect against risk, how the company is governed, how data is gathered and reported, and how financials are created.

Optimizing Together
Here’s one post-close guarantee we can make: we’re going to spend a lot of time together, and that’s a good thing. There will be bi-weekly (if not more frequent) phone calls, monthly site visits, quarterly deep dives, and annual strategy and forecast reviews, which are a lot more fun than they sound. We want to know what’s working and more importantly what’s not, as that is the greatest opportunity for us to collaborate and grow. That’s why we always ask for the bad news, or challenges first, and why it’s unproductive to hide them.

The purpose of all this communication is not to fault-find or micromanage, but to get to know the business inside and out, from a doctor and leadership team’s perspective. We want to help where we have some insight or expertise, while at the same time, give the leadership team’s the freedom to do their jobs and live a good life. The following are just a few examples of the strategies we use to help support the growth of your practice.

Patient referral funnels
We optimize referral funnels by implementing key strategic guidelines to our referral sources. Consistent and systemized communication is key for our referral sources and the care of our mutual patients. We consider this a key strategy to fuel growth and help provide exceptional patient care.

Finance
If necessary, we update financial reporting systems and processes, so we can provide timely reporting. This allows your practice to uncover issues more efficiently, resulting in a quicker pivot, which ultimately saves time and money.

People
We identify any potential productivity gaps and work with you to fill them – either with candidates you know or others from our network. Is there a hire you’ve always wanted to make but never found the fit or thought you had the budget? In many practices, everyone does everything. Ask yourself: are there things I’m doing that someone with different training could do better? Are there things I’m doing that keep me from doing the things where I add the most value?

How Decisions Get Made
Too many ‘cooks in the kitchen’ is never helpful. Is it your decision or is it ours? While we would like to say that we have nailed this, we cannot. Nobody has. Every organization has some role confusion and ambiguous chains of authority. That said, what should be clear is that the Doctor is left to drive the medical decisions, while we take on a supporting role. We empower your leadership team with the tools and advise necessary to help them make the best operational decisions for the practice. Frameworks like this are always a work-in-progress, with people and roles perpetually evolving, but we will collaborate with you and make it our mission to get it right.

Where The Money Goes and Why
Healthy practices, the type we get involved with, generate cash from operations. As that cash is generated, here are some strategic examples of how we can use it for your benefit.

The first thing we want to look for are high-probability, high-return opportunities to reinvest back into the practice. Oftentimes these projects are small and obvious. Perhaps it’s buying some new equipment that will improve our ability to diagnose or treat. These types of reinvestments are table stakes for maintaining the practice trajectory.

The next categories of reinvestment are expansion projects. This could be investing in research and development to create an opportunity for our physicians to do research in a community setting. Sometimes it’s bringing on a new team to build an adjacent type of care that the practices current patients could benefit from or doing a small acquisition with one of your neighbouring practices to provide more care opportunities for patients under one roof.

Regardless of the type of reinvestment, the decision-making process is identical. We want to do our best to estimate the range of potential outcomes from the decision, then try to understand probabilities. We then force rank these opportunities and see how much risk we want to take. The higher the probability and higher the expected return, the more likely we are to green light the project. We live in the real world, so the math is important. The conversations generated by such exercises are priceless and lead to dramatically improved decisions.

We strongly believe that our partnerships need to be rooted in a common vision on expanding the services provided to the local community, helping more patients access specialty medical care with a great clinic experience, and sharing the rewards of our collaborative endeavours equally.

What Doesn’t Change
If that is all that changes, we hope it’s evident that most of the day-to-day does not. We want the same great people providing the same great service to the patients, while we provide the proven foundations for growth. The same great team simply becomes more empowered.

Author: Michael Black, Chief Executive Officer, Specialty Medical Partners